


Bells and Hayes Chapters from Kinktober 2019

by Superstition_hockey



Series: Whatever You Love Best [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:02:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27138395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superstition_hockey/pseuds/Superstition_hockey
Summary: This is not new work - just the Bells and Hayes chapters form Kinktober, moved to a separate work so I can put them in a series that's all Bells and Hayes story, so that it's easier for people to find. If you've read Kinktober 2019, you've read these chapters before.
Relationships: Bells/Hayes
Series: Whatever You Love Best [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980923
Comments: 52
Kudos: 83





	1. Just the tip

They're stuck on the bus back from Providence and Bells is restless and tired but wound up, and if she tries to stare at her History of The EU book anymore she's going to throw it out the window. Her head hurts. The boys had played alright, they’d pulled out a W at the end at least, but that last try was sheer luck and the first half of the match was tragic. She was frustrated, and tired, and this book was the worst, and wrong, and all she wanted was like… an orgasm and to sleep for 12 hours. “Calisse,” she shut the cursed book and closed her eyes, “I need to get laid.” Isn't she supposed to be having more wild times in college? So far it's just flash cards and bossing idiot boys around, both of which are fun, but not much different than high school. 

Conversation in the seats around her came to a shattering, abrupt halt. 

In the resulting awkward silence, Bells opens her eyes and finds everyone in the back third of the bus staring at her. 

Oh. Right. In Bells’ defense, it’s easy to forget, sometimes, that everything, everywhere, isn’t hockey. That she’s just Bells here, now, not _Baby-Bells_ , a whole league’s little baby sister. 

Jace laughed weakly. “Christ, the shit you say, for a little baby froshie.” A few of the other guys chuckle, the tension seeping out of the moment. A few guys glance towards the front of the bus where coach and most of the staff are asleep. 

It’s annoying, a little bit, the little baby froshie part. But Bells knows how being the rookie works, so she lets it slide. 

Most of the other guys seem like they’re about to go back to their video games or their sleep, ready to forget it, and then Hayes, of course it’s Hayes says, leers, really, leaning over the aisle towards her seat, “Bells, anytime you need to get fucked, you just let me know, I can probably work you into my schedule.” 

“Hayes,” Jace says softly, voice a warning. 

“What?” Hayes argues, “she’s the one that said she wanted it.” 

But that’s easy. Men are easy. _Boys_ are easy. Male posturing and dominance is tedious, but _easy_. She just opens her book back up, rolling her eyes. “Bold of you to assume I’d be the one getting fucked, Haywood,” she drawls, not even bothering to look up at him. 

Rock crows, and the echoes of “Oooooooh. she fuckin got you, man” and “DAMN” and “Fucking got slapped, Hayes,” ripple through a delighted back half of the bus. Jace claps her on the shoulder, and Rocketman leans an arm over the divider to give her a fist bump. Bells taps her knuckles against his and finally spares Lawrence Haywood a glance. 

“Strap game on point,” she assures him and gives him a wink. 

Except he doesn’t laugh. Or get pissed. He goes _red_ from his cheeks down to his collarbones and looks shy, for just a second, before shaking it off, shrugging Brooks’ hands off his shoulders and saying, “Jeez, what the fuck ever, Teixeira.” 

Bells makes a jerkoff gesture to signal that she’s done with this conversation and his ridiculousness in general and goes back to her homework. Maybe if she can read one more chapter of this utter fucking bullshit of a book, she’ll get an ice cream at the next gas station. 

It should have been the end of it except Hayes _keeps_ blushing. Every time she looks at him. For like… weeks. 

To her utter surprise, somewhere around the 4th blushing maidenly glance, followed by ridiculous bluster, Bells finds herself thinking about it. 

It’s not unappealing. Hayes is kind of an arrogant shithead, when he’s trying to be. His parents are some kind of big deal American politicians. He’s tall, spoiled, and cocky. Good looking and he knows it. It's boring, but whatever. He’d be less boring, her brain supplies, if he were flushed and sweaty and begging underneath her. That perfect blond coif all fucked up, blue eyes glassy with tears and smirk long gone. 

Sitting around wondering about something, wanting something, and not going after it, is not Bells’ style. She can’t really think of a reason _not_ to. 

“Hayes,” she says, three weeks later, in the dining hall, when Brooks has gotten up to go get more yoghurt and they’re alone. “Do you want me to fuck you?”

“The fuck, Teixeira!” he whispers. 

“Oh, please. We’re alone. There’s no one around for like five tables. I think it’d be fun.” She thinks it'd be a lot more than fun. She wants to so much, the more that she thinks about it. She thinks it'd be amazing. But, of course, she's not going to tell _Hayes_ that and let him just… smirk his way through the whole thing and _win_.

“Jesus. You can’t just…”

Bells shrugs. “Why not?”

“Jesus. Okay. Um. What the fuck. Sure.”

Bells smiles. “Awesome. This weekend. I have an econ test on Friday, so I’ll be busy until then.” 

“Fuck.”

Brooks throws himself back down in the chair next to them. “I can’t believe they’re out of fruity pebbles,” he whines. “All this fucking tuition and I can’t even have fruity pebbles. Hayes, bro, why is your face doing a thing?”

“I told him that I’m a socialist.” Bells smiles sweetly. 

“Jesus fucking christ,” Hayes mutters. 

Bells glances at her phone, realizes she’s going to be late for class, and stands, slinging her satchel over her shoulder. “Later, dweebs,” she says. She squeezes Hayes’ shoulder as she walks past him. He shudders, just a little, under her fingers. 

It’s only when she’s halfway through her Anth 101 class that she realizes she’s let her mouth get away from her. 

She doesn’t even _own_ a strap-on. 

Well. That’s easy to fix. She opens a new tab on her laptop and a quick search gets her to a site with overnight shipping. The guy sitting behind in the auditorium seating starts coughing. Bells reaches into her satchel, fishes out a cough drop, and tosses it over her shoulder. 

Gear is an easy fix. It's form that has her worried. 

She could ask her sister, of course. But Katya would probably tell her _not to_. Or that it would be beautiful and special no matter what, or something. Katya is her best friend in the whole world, but she is sappy as fuck, and whenever Bells says things she gets this look on her face, like Bells is _missing the point_ and it’s annoying and it will take Bells like an hour to convince Katya that this is not about _having a crush_ \-- it’s about you know… victory. Bells thinks about it some, who to ask, in between taking notes. 

She doesn’t know anyone that plays on the Bruins except one of their undercoaches, but they’re playing the Knights in two days at home, which works fine. Winks is her bro, and, if NHL gossip and the depths of quick but unpleasant social media search are to be trusted, his teammate, Locks, is very good at sex.

Bells shows up to the Knights morning skate. There are a few other women there, and some parents’ with kids, a few journos on their normal morning beat. 

Winks skates by and does a double take when he sees her, then waves. 

When they head off the ice at the end of their practice he jerks his head at her and she makes her way over to their bench. “Come on back,” he says and she hops the railing and follows him back to the locker room. 

“Winkowitch, what the fuck, no girls in the-- Oh, hey Baby-Bells,” the Knights coach says. 

Winks gives her a fist bump then starts stripping off his gear by his locker. Bells gives a few high fives and hugs other guys she knows a little. 

“Hey, coach,” Bells gives him a wave. “Like the way you adjusted your right wings. Good strategy against Boston. 

Coach gives her a nod in acknowledgement. “Now they just need to clean up their line changes. Corkers -- you got media in five.” Coach continues, “You too, Locks. The rest of you, make sure you ice down, okay. I’ll see you back here at 4. Bells, go find a room that’s not about to have press in it, if you don’t mind, so I don’t have to explain your presence to ESPN.” 

“We’re going to Chipotle,” Winks tells her, “you should come with. Give me five seconds to shower, and talk to the trainer, and I’ll be ready. You can wait in the family room if you want, or the changing room, I’ll text you when we’re clear.” 

The Knights nutritionist makes her a smoothie, and Bells fucks around on her phone for a while until Winks tells her where to meet him. 

“Did you drive?” he asks, pulling on his hoodie in the back hall. 

“Took a cab.” 

“Cool. Locks, have you met Bells? From my rookie billet in Quebec.”

“The famous Baby-Bells.” Locks grins and offers his hand. 

Bells shakes his hand, “Yeah. #23, right? You turned the puck over to my brother two weeks ago.”

Locks laughs in delight. “Me and everyone else in the NHL. Come on, I’m hungry. You want to take an Uber, or walk?”

Bells eats her way through a burrito bowl. 

“So what’s up?” Winks asks, half way through his own burrito, “You coming to the game tonight?”

“I can’t. I have a lab at 7 and I’m managing the men’s rugby club, so I’ve got to get up at 5:30 tomorrow for their practice.”

Winks smiles. “I bet you’d be good at that.” He gestures towards the rest of the guys at the table, Locks and Shippsy, and Sevens. “Bossy as fuck, this one, she was managing me better than my agent my rookie year. Whole reason I didn’t get sent down.”

Bells laughs. “I did have a question for you though.” 

“Shoot.” 

“Not here.” Bells says, because it’s easy enough winding up in the media without talking about sex in a fucking Chipotle. 

“Oh, word. You can come back with us to the hotel. I gotta be eyes-closed by 1:30 though. Can’t miss my naptimes.”

“He gets cranky." Sevens jokes. 

Bells throws her coat onto an arm chair in Winks’ hotel room. “So, fucking.” she begins. 

Winks makes a horrified face. “Uh. No. What the fuck.”

“Hell no.” Locks says. 

“The fuck.” Sevens shudders. 

“Thank you, but I’m very happily married,” Shippsy says, unfazed. “Also, you’re far too young for me.” 

Bells wrinkles her nose. “Oh, not with any of _you_. Don’t be gross.”

“Fuck, lead with that then,” Winks says. “I almost hurled.”

“I need advice.”

Winks blushes. “I’m sure, uh, whatever you’re doing is fine, Baby-Bells. Any guy who’s not happy with...”

“Oh my god, ta gueule de crisse,” she cuts him off, “I need advice on _topping_. I haven't before.”

Winks makes a face. “What about that goofy nerdy kid in Model UN with you?" 

"Max? We just made out and like... hands."

Winks makes the face even more. "Jeez. Don’t tell me about that. Ugh.” He looks sort of stricken. 

Bells rolls her eyes. “Stop being a prude. Look, I’m only here because I was practicing and I got a cramp in my hip. Obviously, I’m not practicing with the proper technique, which is worse than not practicing at all. If you can’t help, I’ll leave.” 

“Baby-Bells,” Shippsy says, “you don’t need to be the best at something when you start out, just, explore, with your partner and you guys will figure it out. Anything that you do together will be special and intimate.” 

Bells groans, because honestly she might as well have called Katya if this is the help they’re going to offer. “This isn’t like some hallmark bullshit with my _boyfriend_ or something. I need to be the best at dicking someone down by Saturday night.”

Winks squints at her. “Why would you need to… Wait. Did you talk big game and now you have show up or shut up?” he asks. 

“Maybe.” Bells refuses to blush. Embarrassment is for people who are way less awesome that she is. 

Winks laughs until he’s crying, holding his belly and sitting down on the foot of the bed. “Only you, you fucking idiot.” 

“I’m not going to _lose_ ,” Bells says, setting her jaw. “I refuse to be _mediocre_ at this. It has to be the best goddamn dicking he’s ever gotten in his _life_. Like, life changing. Just break the freaking play down for me so I can work out my technique, get some reps in by the weekend, and wipe the fucking smirk off his face."

Four sets of eyes blink back at her. Finally Sevens says “Wow. That apple just fell straight down off the branch, didn’t it?”

Locks shakes his head, “Fuckin eerie.”

“Distressing,” Sevens agrees. 

“Disorienting.” Winks nods. 

“You’re all useless,” Bells gripes, two seconds away from grabbing her coat. 

“Have you tried pigeon pose?” Shippsy asks, from his seat on the other bed, “for your hips? Or was it more like your IT band’s too tight? I don’t know what kind of reps you’re doing on leg day but you probably need to roll out your IT band more than you think you do.” 

"You are such a dad," Winks scoffs. 

“Pigeon pose is a good one, though.” Sevens agrees, “and don’t forget to stretch your hammies, of course, too. Stretch like 30 minutes before you invite him over, like really thoroughly. If you don’t use those thrusting muscles in your pelvis a lot it can get uncomfortable at first, but it’s just one of those things that will build up the more you use it. Looks, Bells, this kid’s in college. Whatever you do’s gonna blow his mind. Just aim for his prostate and you’ll be good.” 

“Oh!” Shippsy said, sitting up, “I know what took me a while, I feel like it took me a while to get where I was kinda like, you know, like more of a fluid motion? Locks, lie down.” 

Locks laughs, and lies on his back at the edge of the bed, jean covered legs spread wide, “Sure I’ll pretend to be Mrs. Shippsy. Let me lay here and think about my grocery list while you--”

Shippsy flips him off, and grabs his knees “Come on, big guy,” Locks chirps, “show me your moves.” 

Shippsy stands between Locks legs and says, “So I feel like it’s easy to just,” he makes a few thrusts straight in the air much to the room’s laughter, “but you really just want to like, get a rhythm where you’re like,” he changes his posture and rolls his hips more, thrusting more upwards, “you see?” Watch some… ugh… not regular porn that won’t help. What’s that feminist stuff Brinky watches? We’ll get him to send you a link. It looks like real fucking. You can watch that like tape, and try to imitate the motion.”

“I used to practice with a pillow,” Seven offers.

“Shut up you did not!” Winks howls, “Oh my god, that is so embarrassing. Where's Bucket. I have to tell him."

Sevens blushes, and says, "You _can't_ , there's a girl here, it doesn't count."

Winks scoffs. "Baby-Bells does not count for that rule."

"Hmmm," Bells says, ignoring them and adjusting her glasses and getting her notebook out of her purse to start making some bullet points. 

Thursday it occurs to Bells that she should not trust some fucking 19 year old straight frat boy with republican parents to know how to show up to a hookup with a clean ass. She hesitates for five minutes over her phone because he probably has _delicate sensibilities_ about it, but finally texts him an explanatory link and says, “You can show up however you like, I don’t care, and I’m going to use a condom either way, but if you want my tongue anywhere near your ass, it better be spotless.” 

She gets a minute of shocked silence, text message marked “seen”, before he sends back a “the fucking shit you say, Teixeira.” 

By Saturday Bells has watched tape, has practiced her reps, run through the play, and aced her econ exam. She's broken in her gear. She does 25 mins of cardio at the gym that morning, then an hour with the free weights, then takes Shippsy's advice and stretches for like another hour before she ices down. She eats five egg whites for 2nd breakfast along with a bagel, and then goes to start checking gear for their afternoon practice. 

Her roommate's gone home for the weekend, and Bells figures it’s probably Hayes’ first time _like this_ and she should maybe make it special or something, so she washes the sheets (herself! She doesn’t even take them to her usual laundry service) and hides all the dirty dishes under the bed. She only has to text Annette twice with questions about how to wash the sheets. She has a moment of panic where she almost thinks about lighting her roommate’s Freesia Garden candle but stops herself because that way lies madness. 

Hayes shows up at her dorm room with shower-damp hair, in jeans that are obviously his pulling-jeans and a rugby shirt. He looks… nervous, but he takes off his shoes by the her dorm room door, rolling his eyes and chirping her about her Canadianess. 

She offers him a beer, because that is one of three things she has in her mini fridge and the other two are yogurt cups and ice cream and she’s pretty sure he’s lactose intolerant. He sits down on the edge of her bed, and they spend a companionable three minutes mocking each other for their beer taste. 

“Are we supposed to like watch TV now until an appropriate amount of time has gone by before we fuck, or something?” Hayes asks. He still looks nervous. 

“Please let’s not,” Bells says, and before things can get any more awkward stands up, puts her glasses on her desk, and pulls off her shirt. When she gets her hair out of her face, Hayes still looks nervous, but now also looks _hungry_ , eyes drawn to her breasts. She pushes her sweatpants down. 

“Fuck.” He says. "You are so fucking hot."

“Take your fucking clothes off, Haywood,” she says. 

Hayes tastes like toothpaste when she kisses him, mouth aggressive and needy and trying to take over until she shoves her hand in his hair and tugs a little and he melts, opening up to her. She nips at his jaw and his neck, and he makes a desperate little breathy sound that she loves _so much_. She plants her hands on his chest and pushes and he falls into her bed with all the satisfying precision of a tree, neatly felled. 

He looks beautiful, all spread out on her bed, all those long lines, the muscles of his thighs and his cock, hard and pink where it’s lying against his belly. The hair on his legs is sandy blond except at the tops of his thighs, where it’s golden and fine, and he has a birthmark at the crease of his right hip. Bells runs her hands up his thighs, appreciatively. The hair on his thighs is just as soft as she thought it’d be, and his skin looks pale and pink against the tan of her hand. 

She must take too long though, admiring, because when she looks up at him, he’s _smirking_ again, hand stroking his cock. She kisses his thigh. 

“Like what you see, Teixeira? We can do this the other way if you want, I don’t--”

She eases down between his legs, when he starts talking, and licks a stripe up one ball. He hisses, chirps cut off effectively, hand tightening around his cock. 

“Christ.” 

She licks him again. His balls are hairy, the hair not as soft here, and darker blond, like on his shins. They smell -- well, they smell like balls, faintly, even under the scent of shower gel. She spends a while there, with her mouth, licking, and sucking, because it’s interesting, the sensations of it, and because Hayes’s breath keeps getting reedier and more undone the longer she spends with her head down here. 

“I’m going to come,” he gasps, jerking away from her a little, and she sits up a little, head propped on one hand. 

“So?”

He blinks at her. 

She grins back, hands back to playing with his balls. “It’s not like _my_ dick’s going to to go soft if you come, come whenever you want.” She lets her thumb drop down and nudge against his taint. 

He gasps, hand tightening like a vice around the base of his dick. “The shit you say, Teixeira, what the fuck. _Oh my god_.”

When Bells nestles herself back down between his thighs, she gives only a few more licks before working down below them. He’s so fresh from the shower he’s still damp, the moisture there tasting more like fresh water and soap than new sweat. She lifts her head up again. “Do you use Herbal Essence shower gel?”

“Shut. Up. Teixeira.” He lifts a leg and digs his foot into her flank, but all that really does is give her more access. She dips her shoulder underneath his leg and lifts, so that his thigh is resting over her shoulder, heavy and thick around her, and goes back to working her way to his hole. 

The first time her tongue touches him there, he shudders, all around her, legs freezing. She licks him again. “Oh my god.” 

“Too much?” she asks. 

“Don’t stop. Fuck, Teixeira.” 

She ducks back down and licks him some more. It’s just about the most satisfying way she could think of spending time. His legs feel so nice around her, and it’s satisfying, the way he trembles at every little thing she does, the needy breathless noises he’s making. She’s turned on, wetness she can feel when she shifts her thighs, and a _want_ coiling in the bottom of her belly, but it’s not urgent. She’s going to get hers, she knows, right now the pleasure is all just watching Hayes fall undone. 

Finally she eases back. He blinks glassy blue eyes at her and she pats his thigh, sitting back on her heels. “Roll over.” 

He looks just as good spread out on his belly as he did on his back. All that time on the row machine makes pretty shoulders. She scoots back down between his thighs and pulls at his cheeks. He groans and bucks his hips into her comforter, and she stares for a while at his pretty, tight little hole. 

“I am going to fuck you so good, Haywood.”

“Stop _talking_ about it, and do it, fuck,” he groans into her pillow. 

She goes back to working his tongue into his hole. He’s _tight_ , and even though he’s loosening, gradually, with her tongue, he’s still tight enough that when she tries to get the tip of her index finger in along with her tongue, it just won’t go. 

She works more spit to the front of her mouth and pushes with her tongue. He pushes his hips back against it. “Fuck yes,” he groans, and she keeps tongue fucking him. 

Eventually she gets a finger tip in. She gets the lube bottle from where she has it stashed and gets her fingers wet, slides the finger in, slow, as gentle as she can. She was careful, clipped her nails down on her left hand. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” Hayes cries, “Slow down a second.” He’s so tight around her finger, hot and tight and pulsing. Jesus, it’s heady. She wants to fuck him _right now_.

“Are you still trying not to come?” she asks, because honestly, her jaw is starting to hurt a little. 

“Yes?”

“You’re tensing up, just come, Hayes, it’ll be okay.” She licks back around her finger, kisses him there. “Just come, with my finger in you and my tongue, and you’ll loosen up. Come on my finger, Hayes, come on.” She crooks her finger, down a little, looking for…. There should be…. Her finger tip brushes over a little bump

“The shit you--” he cuts off, hips jerking. There it is. She presses down and licks at her own finger and his rim and he comes. It’s so tight, when he squeezes around her, she feels fuzzy, head light from it. 

He does loosen up, after that, a little, when he finally finishes coming into comforter. She sits back, stands up. 

“What the fuck….where are…”

“Just need to get ready.” she says, putting a hand on his ass cheek, to calm him down, “two seconds, I just need to get this thing on.” 

He eases up his elbows and looks back at her. He isn’t smirking. His hair’s mussed and sweaty and his face is pink, softened up and sweaty around all his edges. 

The straps are black, and she’s practiced putting them on so she doesn’t fumble with them. The cock is medium sized, five and a half inches, moderate girth. She’s glad she didn’t choose something bigger. It’s blue, with just a slight curve up. She rips open a condom packet and slides it over the plastic. There’s a piece on the back of mount that rubs inside her, against her clit. She’s wet enough she doesn’t need to lube that part. It’s already pressing against her and suddenly everything feels much more urgent. Hayes can’t take his eyes off it. She puts some lube on her hand and strokes her dick. He shudders, eyes big and watery.

She gets back on the bed. “How do you want…? Hands and knees?” He’s still lying on his belly, looking back at her over his shoulder. 

“No. I don’t want…” He goes bright pink all the way down to his chest. “I want… On my back.” 

“I think it’s supposed to be not as easy that way.” 

“I want…”

“Okay, hey, okay, it’s fine, Hayes, I just want it to be comfortable for you.” She pulls at his leg and he goes with it, rolling over. She has to do an awkward little squat, to get over his legs, when he turns. Her cock bobs in front of her. On his back, staring at her, staring at her cock, he looks so good. She leans over and kisses him. His dick’s wet, come smeared against it, half hard. 

“You taste like lube.” 

She bites his lip in response. He palms her tits, thumbs straying over her nipples and she leans into it for a few minutes, kissing his neck and enjoying where it’s hot from his flush before pulling back and getting the lube again. 

One finger goes in easy, but the second takes forever and half way through his cock is hard again and he’s frustrated and grits out, “Fo fuck’s sake, Teixeira, stop fucking around with your fingers and put your dick in me.” 

“You’re still too tight.”

“Fuck. Me.” 

She grabs his wrists, pulling his hands away from dick and pulls them above his head. “Keep them here,” she says, “I’ll fuck you when I want to.” 

She watches the blue of his irises recede into a pool of black. “Teixeira.” 

“You’re here to get fucked, Haywood. Shut up with the commentary.” God, she wants to keep that look on his face forever. His hands clasp into fists but he doesn’t move them. 

She could come just from looking at them, straining and not moving. Insteads she puts her second finger back in. 

“Please,” he says after she’s worked her fingers in and out of him, curling to find his prostate, for a few more minutes. “Please. Fuck you. Fuck you, please, fuck me.” 

“Okay,” she says, heady with it. 

She might have gotten two fingers in him, but as soon as she’s pressing the tip of the cock against his entrance, she realizes her fingers are _small_ and the moderate sized dildo is still going to be a stretch. 

She adds a little bit more lube and pushes. Hayes tenses. He was desperate and begging for it 15 seconds ago and now is so tense he looks like he’s going to levitate off the bed. 

“Fuck, slow down,” he hisses. 

“I was barely in you.” 

“Slow down.” 

“I was trying to slow down five minutes ago, but you were being a bossy fucking little bottom who couldn’t wait.” She is _so close_ to coming. She wants to fuck into him so bad. 

“Shut up, oh my god, it’s _big_. Give me a second.” 

She sits back on her heels and looks at him. “Do you want me to open you up some more with my tongue?”

“No! Just give me a second.” 

She presses her thumb against him. He groans. “Okay, try again,” he whispers. 

She lines the head of her dick up against him and presses. Slowly. “Breathe out,” she says, “bear down.”

“No shit, Teixeira, I know,” he grits out, but he does, takes a deep breath, breathes, out and pushes and the head of her dick pops in. 

“FUCK!” he shouts and squeezes his eyes shut. She holds still. 

“Just… just stay there.” he says.

“Okay. Does it hurt?” 

“Not exactly. It’s just so much, can you just… just with this?”

Bells lets out a shaky little laugh. “Just the tip, Hayes?”

“Fuck you,” he laughs and lifts his legs a little. “Yes, just the tip.” 

She rocks, not pushing in, just… moving, shifting the tip inside him and he groans and clenches. She pulls back a little, pushes the tip back in. “Fuck fuck fuck,” he grunts, “Okay.” The rocking rubs inside against her clit, edging her even closer. 

“Hayes…” 

“Fuck, okay, okay, some more, deeper.” 

She pushes in, leans into him, over him, as her cock slides into him until she’s inches from his mouth, over top of him, his breath warm and wet against her mouth. 

“Fuck, hold still,” he breathes against her. “It’s too much.”

Its awkward, but she slips a hand down to where she’s inside him. He’s taller than her, he’s got his legs up, leaning up against her, and she slips one finger, still slippy with lube against his rim. His cock twitches against her belly. She slips the tip of her finger back into him, alongside her dick.

“Fuck!” He shouts, “Fuck, It’s too much. Stop, take it out.” 

She pulls her finger out. 

He blinks. Stares at her. She kisses him again. “Better?” she asks. 

“Oh my god, Teixeira, did you really do that prom night virgin bullshit to me?”

“Did it work?”

“Yes,” he grumbles, “Jesus fuck, you are the worst.” He bucks his hips against her, brings his legs up, wraps them around her. “Fuck me.”

“Alright,” she smirks, and plants her hands on his chest and thrusts. 

Hayes comes a second time around the time she has her bed frame slamming against the wall. He’s got one leg wrapped tight around her, the other planted on the mattress to push up and meet her thrusts. She’s sweating, and trying to remember the keep the angle right to keep nailing his prostate despite the fact that the constant rubbing against her clit means she’s on what may be orgasm number three or might just be some constant never ending orgram that is going to make her lose her fucking mind and makes it _really hard_ to think about anything else. If he doesn’t come soon she’s going to die. She wraps a hand around his dick, and it’s so wet, leaking, her hand sliding around, and he comes with a _shout_ , the bed making another loud thump against the wall. 

She collapses on top of him. Her legs are trembling in a way she can’t stop, boneless, and she’s gasping. 

“Calisse,” she pants.

“Fuck,” Hayes moans. 

“Am I dead?”

“Your hair’s in my fucking mouth,” he mumbles and tries to move his head away from her. 

“Fuck you, I can’t move.” 

“Pull your dick out, asshole.” 

She shimmies a little, and eases out of him. He whimpers and pulls at the tabs of her straps, taking the thing off her hips, and she falls back against his chest, kicking it away. He wraps an arm around her, holds her close to him. 

“See,” she mutters into his chest. “Strap-game on point.” She holds up a fist, somewhat limply. 

He taps his free hand against hers. “Yeah, yeah, Teixeira, strap-game on point.”

She smiles. "That was definitely the best sex you've ever had." 

"I'm fucked." He sighs. 

They lie there for a while, sweat slowly cooling. Hayes rolls them around, maneuvers them under the blanket. The wet spot is cold and wet and unpleasant, but he shifts it around so it’s not on them. 

“Are you really a socialist?” he asks, finally. 

“Yes.” 

“Jesus.” 

“Not a Christian either,” she adds, just to fuck with him. “Is your dad really some shitty congressman, like Brooks says he is?”

“My dad’s an asshole, can we please not talk about him right now? Or ever.” 

“Sure.” She wiggles her toes against his leg, rubs her cheek against his shoulder. 

“Do you like it the other way?” he asks, after a few minutes of silence. 

She shrugs. “Maybe?”

“Maybe?”

“I’ve never tried it before.” 

He goes still all over. “You’ve never…” He groans. “Like, never ever?”

“No. Just like… hands and mouths and stuff. Never, like that.” 

He groans. “Fuck, alright, give me like fifteen minutes and a glass of water or something to rehydrate.” 

“You wish, Haywood.”


	2. Endurance/Cream Pie

She's mad. Not like… actively or whatever, but still pretty fucking mad since he told her two weeks ago. They're not even dating, but they've been fucking, off and on for 3 years. And more, they're _friends_. It's probably her right, to be mad, when he does dumb shit. It's not like he isn't aware, how dumb it is. 

"You aren't getting tired, are you, Haywood?" Teixeira asks from where she's seated on his back, between his shoulders, feet on his ass, paused between chapters of the book she's reading. "I hear Marines are _way_ into pushups, you're gonna need to up your game. Give me 25 more." Yeah. She's still mad. 

Two weeks ago, he'd signed the papers, showed them to Bells that night. 

It had not gone well. 

"Fuck you, Teixeira," he'd yelled, cutting her off about 6 minutes deep into a rant about the industrial war complex, "you know I didn't have a choice!"

"Everyone has a choice, Haywood! Yours is _fucking_ easy, you say 'fuck off, dad,' and do what you want!"

Hayes had wanted to tell her that joining the Marines was the only way he did know how to say fuck you to his dad. His father had all sorts of contacts from his days in the Army, but not many in the Marines, and the Commandant of the Marine Corps and his dad have hated each other since some fucking cocktail party 15 years ago. He'd fulfilled the letter of his promise to his father, and joined the military. But he'd joined the one branch where his dad couldn't get to him.

Bells had wrapped herself around him that night when he did tell her, a too-small big spoon, and ran her fingers through his hair. "They're going to cut your hair and I already hate them for it." 

They're still friends. They're still fucking. But Bells is definitely still pissed. Like, he'd be worried she send his dad a horse head or something, except she's pretty big on no animal cruelty. She clears her throat, takes a sip of water from the glass next to them and starts in on the next chapter, reading out loud. It's a textbook from their International Policy and Feminism class, about the inherent patriarchy of war. She taps one delicate foot on his ass. "Get going, Haywood." She's a lot of things, but she's never really been subtle. 

Hayes grunts and pushes back up. His arms are shaking. He's lost track of how many sets they're at. Bells is a malevolent tyrant who keeps not skipping all the footnotes and citations.

"1." He counts his reps, "2."

When he gets to 25 he stays down on the floor. His arms are jello. It'd taken him almost a minute to get his arms up on the last press. He's done. He can feel Bells shift around between his shoulder blades on to her knees. He can feel her fingers, cool against the sweat on the back of his neck, her knee bones digging into back. She leans over to peer at his face. She's blurry through the sweat in his eyes, hair hanging down, glasses perched on her nose. "If you can name the country in which the CIA murdered the democratically elected leader and installed a fascist dictator to maintain low banana prices, you can be done."

"Panama," he gasps. 

She steps off him, rolls him over onto his back, hums a little while prodding him with a toe. "You don't _look_ tired enough to be an idiot signing himself up to die to make a handful of evil bastards rich."

"Teixeira…"

"Alright" she says, and pulls her skirt up. It's flowery green and blue, with birds on it. Her legs are long and golden tan. Three seconds ago his head was swimming, arms burning. Now all he can see, think about, is the place between those legs, the little strip of teal cotton and lace covering it, the little damp spot on the cloth. 

She hooks her thumbs in her panties and pulls them down, gets down to her knees and crawls on top of him. 

She smells like the lotion she uses on her legs, and sex. He licks at her clit while she settles onto his face, thirsty for it. She tastes amazing, sweet, just beginning to get really wet. He wraps his hands around her legs to pull her into better position, fingers squeezing her ass, and then drags his tongue to her entrance, pushes inside, then back up to her clit to suck on it. 

Bells, once you get her over the edge the first time, can just stay there. This he knows. She comes the first time when he's got his tongue working on her clit, and a finger rubbing against her asshole, not pressing in. He keeps her there, doesnt let up, brings his thumb on his other hand to circle her clit while he concentrates on tongue fucking her. She squeezes her thighs around him and moans, fingers in his hair, pressing down into it, riding his face.

After she comes the third time, she rolls off. 

"Teixeira," he moans, "please…"

She pulls his shorts down, fast, and efficient, hand wrapping around his cock, then swings a leg over and sits down on him. Not on his dick, just on him, cock underneath her, sliding between her folds.  
She rocks back and forth, hands squeezing her tits through her shirt. Hayes can't look away from her. The flush on her face, the sweaty joy of it, that look she gets in her eyes when she's teasing him. When she's getting what she wants.

"Fuck!"

She slides up and down him, rubbing where she's wet and slick and hot. It's not what he wants, but it's still amazing, and it's enough and he comes all over his belly and between her thighs, dick pulsing against her pussy. 

She rolls on to her back, skirt still rucked up around her waist. "Do you want to clean me up?" She asks. Hayes looks at where his come is dripping, white and glistening between the lips of her cunt. 

"Yes," he says with a growl, and rolls over to bury his head in between her legs again, fingers gripping her thighs to pull them around him and getting to work. 

Later she wipes them off and gets them on his couch. She has grapes in a bowl and they share them while watching some dumb action movie that he's not paying any attention to. Her fingers are soft as they bring them to his mouth, as they stroke his shoulder. 

"How much do you think it costs to have someone killed?" Bells asks when the guy on screen takes a smooth aluminum suitcase full of money. 

"The shit you say." Hayes says into her hair. It's always in his fucking face, but now he just doesn't care any more. Also it smells good. Like her fancy jasmine green tea shampoo. "You can't have my dad assassinated."

"But it's almost my birthday and Uncle Grant was asking me what I wanted."

"So ask for a yacht, or a fortune 500 company or whatever people with billionaire uncles normally ask for, you can't kill my father. Someone will disappear you and I won't get to eat you out anymore."

Bells eats a grape. "Even if I really, really want to and he really, really deserves it?"

"Basically."

"It was just," she wiggles a hand, "a passing thought."

He kisses her. "And I appreciate the thought, Teixeira."

She tenses a little, "what if I---"

"You also can't join the Marines just so you can beat up anyone who looks at me funny and then tell everyone how wrong all their opinions are."

She sags back against him, jaw snapping shut. 

"You'd get court martialed before the end of the first week of OCS training. Please don't." He kisses her head. "Four years and I'm done, Teixeira, it'll be fine. Then I'll go… plant trees or end global hunger or whatever you're working on."


	3. Fluid Exchange

It’s 9 p.m., Bells has just gotten back from the gym, and she is definitely not expecting anyone, so the knock on the door is unexpected, and a little worrisome. She puts her shaker bottle down on the kitchen counter and goes over to look through peep-hole, sees a dark coat and familiar jaw line. 

When she opens the door, he's standing there with a bag slung across a shoulder. He’s wearing a toque over his close-shorn hair. She hasn’t seen him in person since his college graduation. She hadn’t gone to his OCS graduation, but they’d talked a little on the phone, off and on, or through text, until it had become increasingly difficult to have any sort of conversation with him that wasn't infuriating or heartbreaking or both. Bootcamp -- or the officer version he had gone through -- and the subsequent schools he’d gone through afterwards, are all about breaking people down and building them back up the way they want them. 

It’s hard to talk to people when they’re in the process of being brainwashed. 

Bells had hated it. Hated talking to him when he was like that. She definitely hadn’t seen him, even though he’d offered, half-heartedly, a few times, for them to meet up. Last she’d heard, he’d been deployed.

Now, here he is. And he doesn’t look anything like the guy, her guy. He looks like someone just shaved away all the soft parts of him. Everything sharper. Harder. A tightly wrapped aggressiveness somewhere that she can’t even pinpoint. In the tension of his shoulders, in the line between his brow, in his jaw, in the poise of his balance. She realizes that she’s just _staring_ , silence dragging out, when he finally says, “Jesus fuck, Teixeira, you gonna let me in?" and shoulders his way past her. 

He pulls his toque off when he steps inside, throws his bag down in the entry-way. His ears stick out, a little, without his hair to soften them. He's underweight, too lean, lips chapped, ruddy and wind-burned across his cheeks. 

“I thought you were in [redacted],” she says, as he stalks around her apartment. 

“I got back,” he answers, wandering over to her windows. “Nice place.” 

“Well, you know me,” she jokes, wrong-footed and a little too sharp, “spoiled trust fund kid, enjoying my life of entitled liberal luxury from my ivory tower.” 

If he realizes that she’s just throwing his own words back at him, the last time they’d talked, about three weeks into the combat training course he'd gone to right after OCS, he doesn’t even blink at it. She’d been so mad at him for the sheer _hypocrisy_ of that statement, she’d …. Well, she’d yelled a lot, and then told him to go fuck himself with his rifle, if he loved it so much, and not to call her again. He hadn’t, but a month and a half later he’d liked a picture she’d posted of the beach in Madeira, commented, _nice board, new?_

She’d answered and hadn’t heard from again for another four months when she’d been included in a group email from him giving his forwarding address to receive mail while he was deployed. Two weeks later, he’d DM’ed her on Instagram. No flirtation. No emojis. No apology. Just _what did your dads do when guys came that got traded to the ‘diques from bad situations?_

She’d stared at her phone for 15 minutes, before typing out _what type of bad situation_

_Bad coach_

_how bad_

She’d watched the three little dots appear and disappear for five minutes. Finally, he just said _fuck I don't know moderate to severe_

She’d spent a while typing out her answer. It’d been a couple paragraphs long, not really suited for the format of an instagram DM, but she’d done it anyway. Talked about different situations, different types of ways to handle it. 

He’d replied back _thx that helps_

 _why?_ she’d asked.

_unfucking someone else’s mess_

She hadn’t heard anything more for weeks, but he’d kept messaging her, off and on, asking questions about leadership, team dynamics.

Then radio silence. 

Now here he was. 

She’s still kinda mad. 

He’s still looking out her windows, standing at the edge of them, looking around at the buildings. “You’ve been doing good work, I hear.” He pulls her blinds closed. 

“From who?”

“Jace keeps me updated. And the last time I spoke to my father, he called you a nefarious, interfering little communist slut, which means you must be doing something right.” 

She grins, and he smiles back at her. A crinkle at the edge of his eyes. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” 

He just snorts and leaves the windows, coming into the walk-through galley kitchen. “As it was meant.”

“Do you--” she flounders. He looks-- Well. He looks like he needs to eat, honestly. “Are you hungry? Have you eaten dinner?”

The look he gives her, standing so close, is a little incredulous. “What, did you suddenly get all domestic while I was gone and figure out how a stove works?”

“This is Manhattan, dumbass. Anything you feel like eating can be delivered.” 

He’s so close, close and real and she hasn't seen him in so long, warm and in front of her, and his coat smells like cold outside air, which is no surprise, because February in Manhattan, but also weirdly, like pine trees. Not like pine-scented cologne, or a fake Christmas candle, but like actual trees, like he's got sap stuck to his coat somewhere. 

“The only thing I want to eat,” he says, low and hungry, leaning his head down, fingers brushing her hair away from her neck, lips pressing warm against her ear, “is your pussy.”

She makes a sound, involuntary, and all of a sudden he’s pushing her up against the counter, hiking her leg up around his waist, fast and efficient, arms strong and immovable around her, teeth at her neck. 

It feels _good_ , makes lust lurch in her gut, but it’s also…. It’s also so fucking backwards and confusing and what the fuck is happening? She gasps again as he licks at where his teeth were. She brings her hand to his head, an automatic response, fingers searching, but there’s no pretty gold waves for her to yank and tug on her. There’s a second that feels like falling, something in her _lost_ and unsure, and then she brings her hand to his jaw, instead, and grabs hold, yanks his face up to look at her. 

“This isn't how this works,” she says, staring into his hungry face. 

“How does this work, then, Teixeira? Tell me.” 

She takes a breath, tries to catch up with herself. Lifts her chin. “You want something like that, you get on your knees and ask _nicely_ , and try to convince me you deserve it.” And then she pushes down, with her other hand, on his shoulder and he just _goes_ , sinks down onto his knees on the tile, looking up at her. 

“Shit,” he breathes, “fuck, Teixeira.”

“Ask nicely,” she reminds him, heart hammering in her chest. 

“Please,” he breathes, “pretty please, Bells, can I lick your cunt?”

“Have you been good?” she asks, mostly out of reflex and immediately wishes she hadn’t when she sees his face. The flick of uncertainty that goes through it, the moment of something that shifts instead to frustration. 

“I’ve _fucking_ tried,” he whispers, all that frustration coming through a little vicious. 

She wants to take it back. Tell him he’s good. That he’s her sweet boy, that he could never be anything but good, but god. “I’m glad to hear it,” is all she says instead, lifts a foot up, presses it against his thigh. “But I think I want to hear you beg a little more.” 

He swallows, shifts against her foot. “Please. Fuck, you think I haven’t been…. You know how often I’ve jerked off, thinking about you sitting on my face? Please, please, I want you so bad, you don’t know… you don’t…” 

She drags her fingers over his temple. “Do you want me to right now, or do you want me to shower first? I just got back from the gym when you came here, I feel like I probably stink.” 

He snorts into the palm of her hand and mutters something. 

“What was that?” 

“Marine,” he mutters, “I really, really, really don’t care about you being sweaty, Bells, please.” 

Bells pushes her yoga pants down, biting her lip at the look of absolute desperation on his face. Jesus, it’s like a kick in the chest. “Get to it then.” 

He dives in the enthusiasm of a man dying of thirst, buries his face in her a little too fast, nose bumping against her, tongue insistent. The hair thing is _annoying_ , how is she even supposed to grab and put him where she wants him, but she pulls with her legs, puts them over his shoulders and tightens her thighs around him. 

It’s clumsy and too eager and too much, except she's dizzy with him how strong he felt, boxing her in and how fast he went to his knees, and how much she remembers him, the smell of him and the feel of him, and the sound of his voice, and it's suddenly intolerable that she had to waste her time fucking anyone else for the past few years. She digs the heel of her foot into his shoulder blades and grinds her pussy against his mouth, suddenly so close to coming she feels dizzy. 

When she comes she keeps him there, held tight by her thighs, shaking apart against the flat of his tongue, until she finally lets her legs drop and he falls back, gasping. 

"Please?" he begs again, hand straying towards his jeans. 

"Let me see," she answers and he tugs at his zipper, fumbles with the button, pulling his cock out, hard and angry and wet. 

"How bad do you want to come?" she asks, catching her breath. 

" _Please_ ," he grits out between clenched teeth, and the look in his eye, fuck. 

She slides off the counter, pushes him onto his back, leans over him. When her mouth touches his cock he hisses, hips jerking, and fingers clutching in her hair. It doesn't take long, he was already on the edge. He comes in her mouth, hips shaking, curling around her on the floor, and then falls flat on his back, hands dropping away, panting at the ceiling. 

"Shit goddamn," he huffs. 

Bells crawls half on top of him to kiss him, and he kisses her back without hesitation, the taste of himself in her mouth, his arms wrapping around her. 

They make it to the couch, after, and Bells insists on ordering something. "Why are you half starved?" she demands, but Hayes just yawns sleepily, stretched out on her couch and flipping through channels. 

"I just graduated SERE school this morning, Teixeira, it's been a few weeks since I've eaten."

He opens his eyes, sees Bells where she's staring at him in outrage. "Me and some of the guys stopped at a Denny's on our way out but our eyes were bigger than our stomachs. Couldn't get much more than a few bites down. If you're going to order, order something that will reheat, or is small. I need to eat small meals frequently, until my stomach gets back to a normal size. I can start bulking once I get to jumpmaster training."

"That's… I can't...even...what the fuck, Haywood."

He closes his eyes. "Please, can we not."

When she keeps staring at him, he sighs. "Will it make you feel any better if I tell you that me and Corporal Tjaden were the first to get to a drop site last week, so we split half a fun-sized snickers?" 

"It. Will. Not."

"Then just order food, Teixeira." 

Hayes eats a steamed pork bun slowly, but with great attention. Bells puts the rest of the food in the fridge, and he follows her to the shower. He's got bruises on his wrists that aren't from her, hands rough and cracked, cold-burned. She puts her shower cap on before she gets in. It's not like he's never seen it before. 

"Why are you here?" she asks, when he's sitting on the bed and she's standing by her dresser, rubbing lotion onto her legs. "If you just wanted to fuck someone, I'm sure Oceanside is full of ladies looking for Marines to fuck."

Hayes hums in agreement, eyes never leaving her, like he can't get enough of watching her rub lotion on her elbows or pulling on pajama pants. He's got new ink. Well, any ink at all is new on his skin to Bells. Abstract shapes. Swirls of color. A skull. 

"I assure you," he says, voice warm and content, "there is no comparison."

She hates that way that burns in her chest like a coal, lighting her up and warming her through. 

"But you're right, that's not the only reason I came." 

Well. Bells just waits for him to continue.

Finally he says, "Do you ever think about what it would do to my father’s reelection numbers if I died in combat?" 

"Weirdly enough, Haywood, I try not to think about you dying." 

He rolls his eyes. "Well, I have. At length. Not in OCS, or even in my first deployment. Was just too fucking busy to worry about shit that wasn't immediate. But I thought about it a lot in SERE. Had a lot of time after I got caught to sit and think. So, I have a plan, to make sure he'll never be able to plaster pictures of me in my dress blues all over his campaign posters. You know a good trademark/IP attorney, right? And a rock solid estate planner?"

"Yes…"

"Great. How do you feel about pre-nups?"


	4. Anonymity

Bells drums her fingers nervously on the steering wheel. 

"I don’t know why you’re so worried,” Hayes says. “Parents love me.” 

Bells shoots him an incredulous glance. 

“What? They do. Teixeira. I get that you were raised in some kind of weird Canadian sports commune, but I’m a Harvard graduate. I’m a decorated MARSOC officer. I work--”

“EXACTLY!” Bells hisses. “Don’t say any of that to them, what the fuck.” 

Hayes blinks. “Well. I thought it sounded a little better than ‘Hi, I’m Lawrence Haywood. My father is basically Sauron, my older brother’s one armband away from joining the SS, and my sister probably bathes in the blood of disadvantaged youths instead of using Botox. Your daughter set up her home audio system to play the Imperial March everytime I enter a room and has devoted her entire international labor law degree to being my father's arch nemesis. We got married in Vegas years ago so that she can legally own my trademark, but don’t worry, our pre-nup is twenty-five pages long. Nice to meet you.’ What do _you_ think I should say?”

“Fuck, I don’t know. Just. None of that. You could say you’re a barista that works in the Starbucks in the UN building.” 

“You want me to pretend to be a _barista_?”

“Whatever, never mind.” 

“No, no,” Hayes says, “you’re the boss. You want me to be a barista. I’m a barista.” 

“You are such an asshole? That’s all you’re going to say, you’re the boss????”

Hayes shrugs. “Happy wife, happy life.” 

“Oh! That bullshit!”

Hayes sighs. “I assure you, I’ve been given stupider mission parameters.” He cuts a sideways glance at her. Life would probably be easier if he didn’t think she looks so fucking hot when she’s mad. He reaches a hand over and tugs gently on one of her ridiculous curls, watches it boing around her chin when he lets go. “C’mon, Teixeira, where’s all your lovey dovey hippie ‘love everyone as they are’ bullshit now?” 

“ _My_ love is not the love in question, I want my family to love you.” 

“No. You want your family to love _you_ , and you think that if they find out you love someone like _me_ , they’ll figure out all the parts of you that you don’t want them to see.” 

“Wow, first off -- fuck you? Secondly, my family and I have amazing communication. I don’t have any secrets from them. We’re not some weird cliche rich family with skeletons in our closets, ok. I love my family. My family loves me. We talk everyday. And they know me really well. Better than anyone.” 

Hayes looks around as she pulls the car into a driveway. It’s a big house. Wide and sprawling, but maybe the most surprising thing is how close it is to the street and the other houses. No gate. No big looping horseshoe-shaped drive. Just a big house with a tiny front yard, a pull-in driveway and a bunch of other cars parked along the curb. Kids playing down the street aways. 

He gets out of the car, stands, leans in to look at her, “That’s horseshit, Teixeira, and you know it.”

Hayes drapes his arm over her shoulder as they walk towards the door, because for all their differences, one thing he and Bells have always agreed on is the importance of a united front. You got problems in the locker room, you keep it in the locker room. 

Bells doesn’t ring a doorbell, just opens the door. A dog starts barking, comes skidding into the foyer and then starts prancing, tail wagging when he sees Bells, knocking against her shins and licking her fingers. She drops down to her knees and wraps the dog in a hug, lets it lick her face. 

“I see who she’s really happy to see,” a voice says from the top of the stairs. 

That’d be Jackson. Tall. Dark red curls streaked with gray. Beard. Flannel shirt. He holds out his hand and Hayes takes it. There's a part of him, a voice that sounds like his dad, that's so hard to shake free of, that can't help notice the way Jackson hasn't cropped his hair or slicked it to cover the curls, that he has an earring despite his age. 

“Lawrence Haywood, sir, nice to meet you.” 

“You can call me Oliver,” Bells’s dad says. “Come on, everyone’s in the kitchen, I think, or outside.” 

Bells stands and her dad’s arms open immediately into a hug. Hayes watches them for a second, the way Bells’s dad squeezes her tight and says, “I missed you, sweetie.” Then he steps back, pats her shoulder, face so warm and welcoming. “Come on, your papa’s grilling.” 

The kitchen is big and open and airy, packed with people spilling out through the open patio doors onto a deck. There’s a round of introductions, taking him through the kitchen and out into the yard. Hayes has always had an eye for faces, and he’s had plenty of training in memorizing big dumps of mission-relevant data fast. He shakes everyone’s hand, repeats their names while looking at their face and linking the name to some feature. Hank. Sasha. Vanya. Sofi. Buddy. Manon. Yasha. Sergei. Mavs. Katya. That one he knows, already, her face all over every sports channel these days. 

And Chantal, of course. Impossible not to recognize. He gives Hayes a brisk hand shake and then prods a bratwurst with the grill prongs. “Hand me that plate.” 

Someone hands Hayes a bottle of beer -- Beatriz Teixeira ( _Crash_ she'd insisted), easy to recognize, Bells looks so much like her. Hayes shakes her hand too, thanks her for the beer, and answers Chantal’s questions about their drive. 

“So, how did you two meet?” Chantal asks, and he realizes some time in the small talk, Bells has found her way back to his side, squirmed her way under his arm again. 

“Oh, well,” Bells begins, but Hayes cuts her off.

“I work in the Starbucks in the UN building. We see each other most mornings.” 

There’s a little bit of silence, and in it, mostly Hayes notices the little sag of relief in Bells’s shoulders. And then Mama Teixeira says, “You’re a barista?” in a deeply skeptical tone. 

Hayes smiles blandly. “Yes, ma’am.” 

“You didn’t mention meeting anyone at work,” Katya says to her sister. 

“Oh.” Bells smiles her shiniest media smile. “Well, you know how it is. We just met, really. He spilled a chai on me a few weeks ago, we got to talking. We’ve spent the last few weeks in that new relationship sex daze.”

“The shit you say,” Hayes sighs under his breath. 

“You look really familiar,” Chantal says after a beat. 

“Hmmm,” Jackson adds, “he does look really familiar.” 

“He just has one of those white people faces,” Bells says, the little shit, “it’s easy to mix up.”

He gives her a look but she just smiles her stupid fucking press smile back at him. Fine, he thinks, I guess we’re riding this shit out all the way. 

“Hey!” Hank says, “I remember! Didn’t you play on Bells’s college rugby team?”

Beatriz snaps her fingers. “Number 8!” 

“No, ma’am, I just make coffee.” 

“No, no, I …. Didn’t I see you on CNN a couple of nights ago?” Jackson asks, after a second. 

“I know the khakis and polo shirt make it confusing, but you’ve really never seen him before,” Bells says, voice strained at the edges. 

“No, you were giving some kind of press release from the Pentagon.” 

“No, sir.” Hayes takes a sip of his beer. “I just froth milk.” 

Jackson squints at him. “That’s a pretty sharp high-and-tight for a barista.” 

“Starbucks has a rigorous grooming standard, sir.” 

Katya looks up from something on her phone. “Uh-huh. So what’s in a caramel macchiato?”

Hayes summons the same cool unflappable calm that has gotten him through more shit-fucked missions gone bad, ambushes, and FUBAR fire-fights in the past six years than he can count on all his fingers and toes. 

“Caramel, ma’am,” he says. 

Beatriz laughs, loud and startled, and everyone else chuckles. 

"Stop interrogating that young man," an older woman with silver hair and Luc Chantal’s eyes says. "he's about to start reciting his name, rank, and social security number." She grins at him and passes him a plate. "Here. Have a burger. Happy Canada Day." 

He takes it, happy to have something to do with his hands. "Just gonna recite the Starbucks menu," he assures her. "Thank you. Ma'am." 

It's a good burger. 

A few hours later he finds himself leaning against a low stone wall watching Bells play some kind of vicious-looking hybrid kinda field hockey game, like Calvin Ball with sticks, with her siblings and cousins. 

"They call it Vacation Hockey and it's the bane of every PT in the league, it causes so many injuries." Luc Chantal sits down next to him, passes him another beer. 

"Looks pretty brutal," Hayes agrees. 

Chantal hums and then says, "You ever watch ESPN? Know Vinny Trevisan from SportsCenter?"

"Sure."

"He was one of my rookies. Bells adored him, followed him around like a baby duck. He used to teach her card tricks. His mom was a baccarat dealer in Vegas. Dad does…." He waves a hand, "I never really understood exactly. A pro gambler I guess. He used to teach Bells all sorts of shit. Three card monte. Poker. One time I got called into school because they had field day, relay races, hurdles, whatever." 

"Sure."

"The principal called me in because turns out Bells had set up some kind of betting syndicate. She had a little bookie notebook with all the odds for all the different events and a box full of all the other kids' money. The vice principal was the one that caught her. He was so furious. But her math teacher was excited. She wound up not getting suspended, just had to stay after school, work on a probability project with her math teacher for a month."

Hayes laughs because that sounds _exactly_ like Bells. Right down to the part where she basically got away with it. 

Chantal sits quietly for a few more seconds and then says, "Bells has dated a lot of dipshits." 

"Gee. Thanks."

Chantal cuts him a look. "Most people are kind of surprised when I tell that story. Bells? Baby Bells? Sweet little nerdy Baby Bells, the goody two shoes with the glasses and the cardigans? But you didn't bat an eye, so you must not be that big of a dipshit. And I've got no idea why Bells wants you to pretend to work at Starbucks, but if you're a barista, I got all my gold medals in ice dancing. But you didn't budge once. You held it ten toes down through hours of all of us trying to drag it out of you, so maybe you're loyal too." He slaps Hayes on the shoulder. "Welcome to the family, coffee boy."

Later that night, Hayes finds Bells by recognizing one sandaled leg dangling from a tree house door. 

"Permission to come aboard, ma'am?" he shouts up into the tree. 

"Permission granted!" someone, not Bells, shouts back to him. 

Bells shifts to let him up the ladder, and when he reaches the top, he finds her sister, Katya, behind her, braiding her hair. "I see I'm disturbing a sacred ritual," he says, "I can come back later."

"We're just finishing," Katya assures him, and twists a hair tie around the end of one of Bells' braids. "I need to go find Oskar anyway." 

"By the fire pit, talking to Victor." 

"Thanks!" She gives him a jokey little salute, and a wink, and climbs down the ladder. 

Bells takes his hand. Hayes is about to make a comment about girl talk with her sister when she squeezes his fingers and says, low and urgent. "You were _wrong_ , I'm not -- I _assure you_. I am not ashamed of you. I know my family loves me, but beyond that. Haywood, nothing about you is… you are not unlovable. Loving you would not make my parents not love me. That's not it. And I'm sorry. If I made you ever think that."

Hayes has been lied to over the years by a lot of Flag Staff. He's pretty good at smelling bullshit. And there's not a whiff of it in her eyes. She looks miserable and weepy. He squeezes her hand back. "I am assured."

She smiles, and wipes her nose, and says, "But -- I'm sorry. I hate your job." Then she bites her lip, throws a pinecone out the tree fort door and says, "And you're right, I hate my job too. And I don't like… I don't like, about myself, that I can't be happy in it."

Hayes takes a few seconds to consider his strategy and finally says, "Teixeira, that is bullshit. No, shut up and let me talk. You are shit scared of letting these people see your teeth and I have no idea why, because all of them already know, and they all still clearly adore you even though they all know youre a ruthless fucking bitch. And you don't hate your job because you're secretly selfish or shallow or too rich to care about all these fucking things you tell yourself you care about, like human rights or whatever the fuck. You hate your job because you're so scared of your own bite that you muzzled yourself with the bureaucracy of the most impotent organization on the planet. Fuck. That. Teixeira. You hate my job, fine. But be honest about why you hate yours and quit. Find a battle you actually want to win, and then put me where you want me in it. Stop fucking around." 

Oh, she's mad. Mad as a fucking snake, hot red flush across her cheeks and jaw tight. Again, it'd probably be easier if he didn't love her fury, but he does, all that honest, pure rage burning in her heart. Like it's ok if the world is shit, because Bells Teixeira knows, and she's mad, and she's gonna fucking fix it. 

"That was pretty good," she says finally. "A little different approach than the gentle moral nudge I got from Captain Canada earlier, but still pretty good." 

"Yeah, well, I hope you appreciate the 'now go get some, marine' I left off the end."

She drops his hand and squeezes his thigh. "What if I want some?"

He just laughs, and leans back, pushes her hand up farther. "Then I guess you'd better get it. Although uh… tactical analysis of situational--" He gets cut off with a gasp when her hand tightens. "You're not actually gonna fuck me in a tree house 20 feet above your family BBQ are you?"

"Why not?"

"Christ, you really were raised in a commune. Because I'm an officer and a gentleman, and I'm not getting caught with my pants down by anyone's family."

She drops her hand at that and smiles, kisses his cheek. "All right. Guess we better go get in line for s'mores then."

He goes down the ladder first and Bells takes his hand when they walk towards the bonfire. "I'll tell them you're not--" she starts, looking a little sheepish. 

"Oh, fuck no, Teixeira, I'm dug in now. I'm gonna be telling these assholes tidbits from the Starbucks employee training manual and drink menu until we're 80."

"Until we're 80, huh?"

"Eh, marines are pretty stubborn, but I figure around 80 I can safely retire from coffee duty."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Two Captains](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23500855) by [ribbons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ribbons/pseuds/ribbons)




End file.
